The first car kept its engine running. Then a second stopped behind it. Then a third. The white headlights cut through Maelys's curtains and carved the apartment into pale bands. The kitchen, the couch, the coffee table, the mismatched mugs, the hideous yellow throw: all of it suddenly became suspicious, as if the ordinary world had only been a fragile set waiting to be lit from the wrong side. Maelys, still half asleep, stood frozen in the doorway of her bedroom. "What is going on?" she asked. No one answered right away. Because the answer was too simple. They had come. The refuge had been validated. Fig turned inside out. Berries now demanded entry. Selene looked at the window without moving. Behind the curtains, silhouettes stepped out of the cars. Not running. Not panicking. Methodical. Three men, then two women, then another man carrying a pale case. Not killers sent into the night to make noise. Professionals sent to manufacture an official version. Eden moved near the front door, weapon low. Livia signaled for Noe to cut the lights. The apartment sank into dimness, crossed only by the headlights from the street.
Noe whispered, "Do they know we're here?" Maelys answered, "No, they just decided to park three white cars in front of my place to admire my architecture." Her voice shook a little. She noticed it. So did Selene. So Maelys added, sharper now, "I want a real weapon." Livia, from the inner hallway where she was checking the access point, answered without looking at her. "No." "I've been targeted for two chapters. I think I've earned at least a basic equipment upgrade." "You can have pepper spray." "Disappointing, but better than a butter knife." Eden raised one hand. Silence. Downstairs, a car door slammed. Then a man's voice, amplified through a discreet speaker: "Madame Ardent? We have been authorized to carry out a preventive medical evacuation. Please open the door." Maelys blinked. "Excuse me?" Selene felt rage climb back through her like something cold. Medical evacuation. Preventive. Already, the narrative was being built. An unstable friend. An author in crisis. A dangerous entourage. Clean doctors arriving to prevent a tragedy. Lily never only knocked at the door. It arrived with paperwork.
` }, { kind: "body", html: `The voice continued: "We know Mademoiselle Moreau is inside. We are here to avoid escalation." Eden murmured, "They want us to react from the window or the door." "Then we give them nothing," Selene said. Livia came back from the hallway. "Main stairwell under watch. Rear exit possible through the service balcony, but it won't be discreet. Roof accessible through the technical stairwell, two floors up. Elevator blocked on the ground floor." Noe swallowed. "What do we do?" Selene looked at the headlights. She should have said: we run. Or: we hide. Or: Eden, unleash your violent world while I breathe in a corner. She said: "We let them enter the wrong apartment." Everyone turned toward her. Maelys slowly raised her hand. "I love this idea because it makes absolutely no sense. Elaborate before I panic creatively." Selene looked at Livia. "Are there neighbors?" "Second floor left is empty. Apartment under renovation. Same layout as this one, access through the secondary stairwell." "Perfect." Eden understood before the others. "You want to move the refuge." "No," Selene said. "I want them to think they found it too late."
Maelys owned more mess than furniture. For once, that became useful. In less than four minutes, they transformed the apartment into a recent trace: a throw tossed across the couch, a still-warm cup of tea, a laptop open on the table, Maelys's phone placed near a cushion, Selene's old sweatshirt left over a chair, a bloodied bandage in the bathroom. Not too much. Just enough. A rushed departure. A refuge abandoned minutes earlier. Livia placed a small jammer behind the television to simulate residual digital activity. Maelys connected an old phone to her secondary account and left it streaming a silent loop. "If my alt account gets stolen by a medical cult, I am billing you for my digital identity," she said. Noe held the evidence bag tight against him. "What do I do?" "Breathe," Maelys answered. "I'm bad at that." "I know, but you're improving." Selene took Maelys's main laptop. Maelys protested immediately: "Careful with my baby. It has seen more things than my imaginary therapist." "You don't have a therapist." "Hence imaginary. Keep up." Eden stayed by the door, listening to the footsteps rising in the stairwell.
` }, { kind: "body", html: `"They're coming up," he said. Livia opened the kitchen window overlooking a small service balcony connected to a metal ladder. Outside, the fine rain made everything slick. "We move now." Maelys stared at the ladder. "I take back what I said. I would actually prefer a literary death, not a tenant fall." "You go after me," Selene said. "Excuse me?" "I know your athletic level." "Unprovoked but accurate attack." Noe went first with the bag, guided by Livia. Maelys followed, cursing under her breath at the rain, the metal, her socks, and "all men who have made this night vertically dangerous." Selene placed one foot on the balcony. The cold bit her ankles. Eden was behind her. "May I?" he asked. She knew what he meant without turning. Help her across. Hold her if she slipped. Not decide for her. "Yes. Forearm only." His hand settled on her forearm. Firm. Brief. She crossed the threshold.
Inside the apartment, someone knocked at the door. Three knocks. Polite. Horrible. "Madame Ardent?" Maelys, already on the ladder, murmured, "They even sound terrifying when they're being formal." Livia signaled for them to descend toward the lower balcony, then slip through a window she had already forced open into the apartment under renovation. Behind them, Maelys's door gave way. Not blown open. Cleanly unlocked.
Selene stopped despite herself. Her refuge-apartment had just been violated. Maelys stopped too. "Don't look," Selene whispered. "It's my home." "Exactly." Maelys clenched her jaw. Then she climbed down.
The neighboring apartment smelled of fresh paint, dust, and damp plaster. No furniture. Plastic sheets on the floor. Sockets pulled from the walls. Tools abandoned in a corner. A refuge without memory. It was almost restful. They entered in silence. Livia closed the window behind them. Eden stayed near the shared wall, ear tuned to the other side. In Maelys's apartment, the men's voices echoed. "Kitchen clear." "Bedroom clear." "Bathroom. Blood traces." "Active device on table." A woman answered: "Too clean. They just left." Maelys closed her eyes. Selene put a hand on her shoulder. "They didn't get you." "They got my home." The sentence was simple. And true. Selene did not answer, It's only an apartment. She had learned. A place is never only a place when it contains the version of yourself you still managed to believe was ordinary. On the other side, the woman spoke again. "Find the rear access." Eden murmured, "They'll understand the balcony." Livia looked at the plan on her tablet. "We have two minutes. Maybe less." "Where?" Noe asked. "Roof," Livia answered. "Or basement." Maelys opened her eyes. "Sorry, but every time we go down, there is either a white room, a tunnel, or an elegant sociopath. I vote roof." Selene looked at the door of the empty apartment. "Roof." Eden nodded. They crossed the renovation hallway toward an inner door leading to the secondary stairwell. Livia opened it with a slim tool.
` }, { kind: "body", html: `The secondary stairwell was narrow, unlit, smelling of cement and old wood. They climbed. Noe panted. Maelys did too, but she would have preferred death to admitting it. Above, a hatch led to the roof. Livia climbed first. Then Noe. Then Maelys. Selene put a hand on the ladder. Her injured wrist protested. Eden saw it. "I can help you." "I know." "That was a request, not an announcement." She looked at him. Even in a damp stairwell, chased by clandestine medical agents, her body still found a way to react to his voice. Unbearable. Alive. "Yes," she said. "Waist. No more." He placed his hands at her waist just long enough to steady her while she climbed. She felt the restraint in his fingers. No scene. No open desire. Precise support. She passed through the hatch. The roof welcomed her with rain and the white headlights below.
The building's roof was flat, covered in gravel, antennas, and ventilation shafts. The city around them seemed too calm for what was happening. Lit windows. A pharmacy sign at the corner. A night bus rolling past slowly, unaware that a clandestine network was trying to erase an author on a wet roof just a few meters above ordinary life. Selene moved closer to the edge. Below, the white cars occupied the street like an official sentence. Two men watched the main entrance. A woman spoke on the phone near the hood. Another looked up toward the balconies. Too late. They had understood. "They're going to come up," Noe said. "Yes," Livia answered. Maelys looked around. "Is there a plan where we don't jump between buildings like people in a terrible TV show?" Eden pointed to the neighboring building. "Maintenance bridge." They all looked. Between their roof and the one across from it, a narrow metal walkway connected two apartment blocks. Not built for people on the run. Built for workers who probably had better life insurance than they did. Maelys turned very pale. "I retract my question. I did not actually want a plan." Selene looked at the bridge. Rain. Metal. Open space below. Her body protested immediately. Not romantic fear. A stupid, physical, ancient fear. The fall. Always the fall. Ashfall. Lysfall. The car. The road. The page. Falling had become their shared language. Eden came closer. Not too close. "Stay in the center," he said. "Don't look down. Hand on the rail. Three steps, pause. Three steps, pause." "You've done this before?" "Yes." "Of course. You collect alarming skills." "And you collect situations that make them useful." She almost smiled. Then a sound came from behind them. The hatch. Someone was climbing up.
` }, { kind: "body", html: `Livia raised her weapon. "Cross. Now." Noe crossed first, shaking but fast. Maelys followed after muttering, "If I die on a walkway, I am haunting everyone in Arial 12." Selene put her hand on the rail. The metal was icy. She took one step. Then a second. The bridge vibrated.
On the third, her foot slipped. Eden caught her by the back of her coat. Not at the waist. Not by the arm. The fabric. She found her footing again. "Retroactive permission?" he asked. "Granted. But your timing is still pretentious." "Noted." Behind them, the hatch opened. A woman's voice shouted: "Stop!" Not Eliane. Not Delcourt. A new voice. How many of them were there? Selene kept moving. Three steps. Pause. Three steps. Pause. Until the other roof.
They reached the neighboring roof just as the agents emerged behind them. Livia fired at the attachment system of the bridge. Not to destroy it completely. To jam it sideways. The structure groaned, shifted a few centimeters, enough to make the crossing unstable.
"Will that hold them?" Noe asked. "Not long," Livia answered. "I love your constant optimism." They descended through a technical stairwell in the neighboring building. This time, they did not stumble into a white room, a tunnel, or a doctor of the dead. Only a shared laundry room. Washing machines. Empty baskets. The smell of detergent and damp. Maelys stopped dead. "I could cry in front of this normality." So could Selene. Almost. They exited through a trash room opening onto a rear alley. A car was already waiting. Not a black car. An old gray Renault. Behind the wheel: one of Eden's men, visibly offended to be driving something so undramatic. Maelys looked at the vehicle. "Finally, a criminal car with a realistic budget." They climbed in.
` }, { kind: "body", html: `Selene ended up in the back, squeezed between Maelys and Eden. Noe sat in front with Livia. The car started without headlights for twenty meters, then turned into an alley and slipped away. At the bottom of the building, the white cars stayed visible for a few seconds in the rearview mirror. Then disappeared. No one spoke. Not because it was over. Because everyone knew this escape was not a victory. Only a displacement. Again. Always. Selene looked at her hands. They were shaking. Not much. Enough. Eden saw. He did not touch. He only placed his hand on his own knee, palm open, a few centimeters from her. An offer. Not a grip. Selene looked at it. She could have refused. Maybe she should have, still angry about Ashfall, about the microphones, about everything his world had made possible. She placed two fingers in his palm. Not her whole hand. Two fingers. A tiny contact. Enough.
Maelys saw. Said nothing. A great miracle. Then her phone vibrated. She looked at the screen. "Oh no." Selene immediately pulled her fingers away. "What?" Maelys turned the phone toward her. A livestream had just opened. Anonymous account. Title: ASHFALL - THE REAL REFUGE Shaky image. Maelys's apartment. Filmed from inside. The white agents were still searching. Then the camera turned toward the entry mirror, where someone had written in red: SHE ALWAYS RUNS FROM WHAT SHE CALLS HERS. Selene felt Maelys go rigid beside her. It was no longer only her home. It was public. They had turned her refuge into content.
"Turn it off," Selene said. Maelys did not move. Her face was white. No visible anger. Not yet. Something worse. A shame she had not chosen. Selene gently took the phone from her hand and closed the stream. "Maelys." "They're filming my home." "I know." "My books. My mugs. My ugly throw. Everything." "I know." "People are going to see." "We'll have it taken down." Maelys gave a very low laugh. Not funny. "Do you hear how that sounds? 'We'll have it taken down.' Like it's just a link. They took my home and put it outside." Selene did not answer. Because there was no clean sentence for that. Eden spoke to the driver: "Change route. Livia, take the stream down. All mirrors." "Already on it," Livia said from the front. "But it's bouncing." Noe turned toward Maelys. "I'm sorry." She looked at him with shining eyes. "If you apologize for something you didn't do, I am throwing you out of this vehicle." "Okay." "You can help me find out who's broadcasting instead." Noe blinked. "Me?" "You were useful once. Don't act modest, it's suspicious." He nodded. "Yes. Okay." Maelys retrieved her laptop from her bag, her hands still trembling but already working.
` }, { kind: "body", html: `Selene watched her. This was what the system did. It turned injury into an urgent task. Humiliation into work. A violated refuge into a technical problem. She hated everything. Eden leaned toward her, voice low. "Where are we going?" She laughed without joy. "Is that a real question?" "Yes." "You don't already have three bunkers, two hotels, and one secret apartment where you take traumatized women?" "I do." "Very reassuring." "None of them will be neutral." She looked at him. He was right. Ashfall was compromised. Karol House too. Maelys's apartment had just been profaned live. Selene's shop held a door. The Lenoir Foundation was a white tomb. The port, a war. Where do you go when every refuge becomes an entrance? Noe, from the front, murmured, "The fig tree." Selene turned her head. "What?" His eyes were fixed straight ahead. "In Irina's tape. Claire was supposed to go to the fig tree. Dad knew. Remember? 'If she gets out of there, take Selene and go to the fig tree.'" Selene felt her heart slow. The fig tree. Not the code. The real one? "There was a place?" Eden asked. Noe closed his eyes. "Maybe. I thought it was an image. But Dad sometimes talked about a house. An old house with a fig tree in the courtyard. Mom said it smelled like dust and summer." Selene felt a memory move. Not a complete memory. Warmth. A courtyard. Broad leaves. A woman laughing. Her mother? "Where?" she asked. Noe opened his eyes. "I don't know." Maelys raised one finger without looking up from her screen. "Wait. 'Claire Adrien Moreau fig tree house.' I might have seen an old scan in the Lenoir files. An annex property deed." Livia ran a hand across her tablet. "Searching." A few seconds. Then: "Found it. Rural property in Claire Moreau's name, not declared in standard inheritance records. Municipality of Saint-Aubin-le-Vieux. House closed for fifteen years." Selene stopped breathing. Her mother had a refuge. A real one. Or another trap. Both could be true. Eden looked at the road. "It's forty minutes away." Maelys slammed her laptop shut. "Then let's go see whether Fig is less useless than all your other symbols."
` }, { kind: "body", html: `The city disappeared behind them. The streets became roads. The roads grew narrower. The streetlights thinned out. The rain eventually became only a veil, almost mist. Dawn was not there yet, but the night was changing color. Less black. More gray. An in-between where ghosts seemed tired too. Selene looked through the window. Saint-Aubin-le-Vieux. The name meant nothing to her. Or perhaps too little. She searched her memory for summers, drives, the smell of fig leaves. Nothing sharp. Only a fragment: her mother in a light dress, hair pinned up, saying to someone off-frame, "Here, she'll be able to sleep." She did not know whether it was true. Or whether, after too many codes, her mind was manufacturing a memory to give shape to the next danger. Eden was silent. His hand had returned to his knee, palm open. This time, Selene did not take it. He did not withdraw it. A possibility set between them. Nothing more. Maelys was working with Livia and Noe to take down the apartment stream. Her face had closed. She had not cried. Not yet. Selene wondered whether Maelys would do it later, alone, and felt a familiar guilt try to enter. She blocked it. Not a debt. Not their language. "The stream?" she asked. Maelys answered without looking up. "Down. For now. Clips are circulating. I'm reporting them. I also posted from my account: 'Yes, it's my apartment. No, I don't owe you a guided tour of my trauma.' It's working well." Selene gave a sad smile. "Very you." "That's the point. They can't imitate everyone at once." The sentence stayed. Simple. Important. They had tried to imitate Selene. But they did not have Maelys. Not really. Not Noe. Not Livia. Not Eden when he refused to be the dog they expected. The system knew how to profile individuals. Not yet what they became when they corrected one another. The driver slowed. "We're close."
` }, { kind: "body", html: `A dirt road appeared between two hedges. At the end: a low house, shuttered, almost eaten by ivy. And in the courtyard, immense despite the years, a fig tree. Its black branches stretched into the gray night like open hands. Selene felt something give way inside her. Not fear. An older lock. "I know that tree," she whispered. Noe turned his head. "So do I." The car stopped. No one got out right away. The fig tree waited. Not like a door. Like a witness.
The air smelled of cold earth. And leaves. Not the constructed Fig scent. Not the candle. Not the code. The real tree. Dark green, wet wood, absent fruit, old sap. Selene walked into the courtyard. Each step seemed to wake an image without making it whole. A blue plastic ball. A glass of syrup. Claire's hands on her shoulders. Adrien repairing a window. Noe, small, running with a branch far too big for him. They had been here. Before the road. Before Lily. Before everything became a system. Maelys stayed near the car, watching the house with suspicion. "I want to believe in it, but I've developed an allergy to themed refuges." "So have I," Selene said. Eden inspected the surroundings. So did Livia. No white car. No obvious sign. Which, by now, proved nothing. The front door was locked with an old lock. Not electronic. Not olfactory. Not intelligent. A simple key. Selene almost wanted to cry at that ordinariness. "Do we force it?" Livia asked. Noe approached the fig tree. "Wait." He ran his hand along the trunk, searched between two thick roots. Then pulled out a small rusted metal box. Inside: a key. Maelys murmured, "Finally, a normal hiding place. I am moved." Noe handed the key to Selene. "Yours." She took it. The metal was cold, rough. She opened the door.
` }, { kind: "body", html: `The house smelled of dust. Closed wood. Old sheets. And, very faintly, something of her mother. Not a precise perfume. A presence. Selene entered. Their flashlights revealed a simple main room: wooden table, chairs, fireplace, shelves, yellowed curtains. No luxury. No stage. No visible device. On the table, beneath a layer of dust, a notebook. Not hidden. Set there. As if Claire Moreau had simply left the room expecting to return. Selene approached. On the cover: For Selene, when she has stopped asking the dead for permission. She closed her eyes. Her mother had always had a very precise way of being tender and brutal at the same time.
The first page was dated fifteen years earlier. A few days before the accident. Claire's handwriting was more nervous than in the letters, but steady. If you are reading this, it means the fig tree held. Or that you found the ruins while thinking you were looking for shelter. Both work for me. A refuge that never shows its cracks quickly becomes a prison. Selene sat down slowly. The others stayed standing, except Maelys, who came to stand behind her, close enough to read if Selene wanted, far enough not to invade. Selene continued. I am not going to write you a clean truth. Your father was afraid. I was afraid. Irina was afraid. Eden will be afraid too, if he becomes the man his sister hoped for despite their mother. Fear is not the enemy. What we sign to silence it is. Eden did not move. But Selene felt the sentence reach him. Adrien sold Berries because he thought he was buying our escape. I hated him for that. I loved him anyway. Both feelings exhausted me, then saved me, because they stopped me from turning a cowardly man into a simple monster. Simple monsters are too easy to fight. Cowards who love do more damage. Noe lowered his head. So did Selene. If the White Hand finds this house, it will try to turn it into evidence against me: "Claire was planning to flee," "Claire was hiding her children," "Claire was unstable." So remember this: running is not always an admission of madness. Sometimes it is the final proof that a woman can still assess danger. Maelys murmured, "Your mother was incredible." Selene nodded. She could not speak. She turned the page. A plan had been drawn. The house. The courtyard. The fig tree. And beneath the house, a cellar. Maelys sighed. "Of course. It needed a cellar." Livia leaned in. "Marked how?" Selene read the note under the plan. Not an archive. Not a door. A grave for what must stay dead. Eden said, "We check." Selene put a hand on the notebook. "No." They all looked at her. She continued: "Not like usual. Not by running toward the basement the second a dead person points an arrow." She looked around. The table. The dust. The fig tree outside. "We read first." For once, no one argued.
` }, { kind: "body", html: `Claire's notebook was not an instruction manual. It was better. And worse. It spoke of things evidence often forgets: the exhaustion of watching cars in the rearview mirror, the shame of doubting her husband, the almost unbearable tenderness for children one wants to protect without turning them into safes, the anger at Irina because she was right too early, the admiration for her too, the fear of Eden, already trained as a teenager to carry a violence that did not entirely come from him. Then, in the middle, an underlined sentence. The Lily container does not contain evidence. It contains people. Selene stopped. Everything went still. "What?" Noe whispered. She reread. The Lily container does not contain evidence. It contains people. Eden stepped closer. "Continue." Selene turned the page. The White Hand does not only make stories disappear. It moves the living whose stories would be too dangerous. Some are institutionalized. Some are "treated." Some are sent elsewhere under another identity. The container is a mobile route, not a box. If Althea and Valere are looking for it, it is not to destroy documents. It is to retrieve what remains of the witnesses. Maelys lifted a hand to her mouth. Livia swore under her breath. Selene felt the house spin around her. People. The white container marked with Lily. Not archives. The living. Survivors, perhaps. Witnesses. People erased before dying. "Who?" Eden asked. Selene continued. I do not have the complete list. Irina had part of it. Marius Lenoir certified several as unstable or unfit. Eliane Voss coordinates the narratives. Althea knows at least three names, including one she must never find again. The silence became almost unbearable. Eden spoke first. "Who?" Selene turned the page. The answer was there. One name, written in trembling letters. Isolde Veyr. Eden stepped back. "No." The word was empty. Maelys looked at Selene. "Who is Isolde?" Eden did not answer. Livia, very softly, said, "Irina's twin sister." Selene felt her blood turn cold. "Eden?" He shook his head. "She died as a baby." No one spoke. Claire's notebook, open on the table, said otherwise. Isolde Veyr is not dead. She is the first successful Lily.
` }, { kind: "body", html: `In the cellar of the fig tree house, they did not find a tunnel. No white room. No body. No spectacular device. They found a metal cabinet. Locked with a simple key. Again. The key was taped behind a step, exactly where Claire's notebook had indicated. Maelys declared that this house was "the first one to understand the ergonomic importance of secrets." Inside the cabinet: children's clothes, photos, an old radio, a maritime map, three envelopes, and a small wooden box. The maritime map showed the port. Not only the Orsini port. A route. From the outer basin to an old private landing stage farther south. Then a road toward an estate marked by a single symbol: A crossed-out lily. Livia photographed everything. "This route may correspond to the container," she said. "If we cross-reference it with port movements..." Maelys was already typing. "I'm checking private hangars, estates, shell companies, anything that stinks of institutional white." Noe opened an envelope. "Selene." He handed her a photo. Claire, Adrien, Irina. And a young woman Selene did not know. Almost the same age as Irina. Almost the same face. But darker hair. On the back: Isolde - before Lily. Eden took the photo with an almost painful slowness. He said nothing. Selene opened the wooden box. Inside, a locket. Not Claire's. Another one. With two initials engraved: I.V. And a little rolled piece of paper. Selene unfolded it. Claire's handwriting. If Isolde still lives, she will not answer to her name. Lily does not only kill the truth around people. Sometimes it kills their name inside them. To bring her back, do not tell her who she was. Show her who mourned her. Selene looked up at Eden. He was holding the photo as if it might turn to dust. In the silence of the cellar, her phone vibrated. Everyone froze. Not unknown. Maelys. She was looking at her computer, ashen. "I found the crossed-lily domain." "Where?" Livia asked. Maelys turned the screen. An isolated property, one hour away. Official name: Maison Sainte-Isolde. Status: private convalescence center. Owner: a shell foundation linked to Marius Lenoir. Current director: Althea Veyr. Selene felt the impossible chapter close around them. Not because the door was shut. Because it had finally appeared. Eden pressed Isolde's photo against his heart. Then he looked at Selene. "We go." This time, no one said no.
Outside, beneath the fig tree, day was only just beginning. And somewhere, in a house bearing the name of a living dead woman, Lily was waiting for someone to remember in its place.
` }, { kind: "body", html: `In the cellar of the fig tree house, they did not find a tunnel. No white room. No body. No spectacular device. They found a metal cabinet. Locked with a simple key. Again. The key was taped behind a step, exactly where Claire's notebook had indicated. Maelys declared that this house was "the first one to understand the ergonomic importance of secrets." Inside the cabinet: children's clothes, photos, an old radio, a maritime map, three envelopes, and a small wooden box. The maritime map showed the port. Not only the Orsini port. A route. From the outer basin to an old private landing stage farther south. Then a road toward an estate marked by a single symbol: A crossed-out lily. Livia photographed everything. "This route may correspond to the container," she said. "If we cross-reference it with port movements..." Maelys was already typing. "I'm checking private hangars, estates, shell companies, anything that stinks of institutional white." Noe opened an envelope. "Selene." He handed her a photo. Claire, Adrien, Irina. And a young woman Selene did not know. Almost the same age as Irina. Almost the same face. But darker hair. On the back: Isolde - before Lily. Eden took the photo with an almost painful slowness. He said nothing. Selene opened the wooden box. Inside, a locket. Not Claire's. Another one. With two initials engraved: I.V. And a little rolled piece of paper. Selene unfolded it. Claire's handwriting. If Isolde still lives, she will not answer to her name. Lily does not only kill the truth around people. Sometimes it kills their name inside them. To bring her back, do not tell her who she was. Show her who mourned her. Selene looked up at Eden. He was holding the photo as if it might turn to dust. In the silence of the cellar, her phone vibrated. Everyone froze. Not unknown. Maelys. She was looking at her computer, ashen. "I found the crossed-lily domain." "Where?" Livia asked. Maelys turned the screen. An isolated property, one hour away. Official name: Maison Sainte-Isolde. Status: private convalescence center. Owner: a shell foundation linked to Marius Lenoir. Current director: Althea Veyr. Selene felt the impossible chapter close around them. Not because the door was shut. Because it had finally appeared. Eden pressed Isolde's photo against his heart. Then he looked at Selene. "We go." This time, no one said no.
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